


❛ love was ours, ours a love i held tightly ❜

by thehyades



Series: perhaps, someday [2]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, PTSD, bc its like 2am and why not?, these two have turned me into a hopeless romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23420371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehyades/pseuds/thehyades
Summary: ❛❛ But alas, he’s a little drunk and a little mesmerised by the way the wine stains Blake’s mouth. It’s the second thing Will notices about him. He has a lovely mouth, full and pink like rose petals and faraway, somewhere in his alcohol-addled mind he wonders if Blake’s mouth is as soft as it looks. ❜❜Or Will has three weaknesses; the sea, Blake and napping.
Relationships: Joseph Blake/Original Female Character(s), Tom Blake/William Schofield
Series: perhaps, someday [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684702
Comments: 6
Kudos: 99





	❛ love was ours, ours a love i held tightly ❜

**Author's Note:**

> companion piece to 'hold onto to what we are', i thought scho deserved his own version bc i'm a masochist and i've forgotten what outside even looks like in this bloody quarantine. oh, title is from blue velvet by lana del rey (my wife) and its part of the same universe as 'wayfaring strangers' and 'marion'. hope you enjoy!

_One: The sea_

Before the war, it was summers spent at the seaside. School would end and Mother would get that look on her face, of contentment and joy playing across her delicate features at the thought of another summer by the sea. When that look appeared it would spread to him, his older sister and their father. Everyone had become finely tuned to the prospect. 

Mother would loom over them, throwing commands left and right as Will and Marion struggled to pack everything in the car and Father sat in the driver’s seat, reading the newspaper with a cigar in hand. Then, it was a stuffy, five, sometimes seven hour drive (because even though they owned a car it was slow and old) down to Cornwall with Marion poking him in the face out of boredom and their parents discussing the latest gossip in their village. It was all worth it when they finally reached Cornwall and they caught sight of the sprawling, stone cottage on the cliff and the shining sea it overlooked. Then, it was eight weeks of swimming, long walks by the beach, concerts and stage shows at the local theatre and dinners at the restaurant owned by an old school friend of Father’s. 

Years later, when Marion marries Lawrence and they have the twins, Marion insists on keeping the family tradition of their summers in Cornwall. The cottage on the cliff had gone to Will when their parents passed away and he always joins Marion, Lawrence and his nieces when they travel down to Cornwall. Will teaches the girls how to skip stones and build the biggest sandcastles as Marion and Lawrence lounge on the deck chairs and watch with faint smiles. 

During the war, he dreams of the sea. He dreams of the blue, blue sky and the blue, blue waters and worst of all he dreams of his family.  In the rotten trenches where darkness and death pervades, when life isn’t so cruel it lets him fall deep into the dreamworld. In his dreams, all his memories of the sea merge. He is both eight and eighteen as he stands on the shore. A dozen pairs of the twins run across the beach, shouting to Will they managed to skip the stone the farthest they have ever done. Marion’s laughter echoes everywhere but she is nowhere to be found and above him, his parents talk to Lawrence on the edge of the cliff. Some nights, he wakes to wet cheeks and Blake smiling sadly at him in the moonlight before he reaches out and interwines their fingers together. He has lost the sea but he found Blake. He supposes it’s a fair bargain. 

After the war, he returns to the sea a different man but the sea remains the same. The sky is still blue and the waters are still blue and the seagulls still circle in the sky with the screeching calls and for the first time in years, he feels at home. Perhaps it is the change the war has forced upon him that makes the windy, seascape seem so beautiful. But the beauty of the wild sea and its crashing, cold waves bears no candle to Thomas Blake. He returns to the sea with a new love, a man, despite death chasing them at every step, has made it home with him.

Below them, on the sandy beach, Marion soaks in the afternoon sun as she lies on the deck chair and reads a worn-out copy of _Emma_. Joe and the girls are off in the distance, knee-deep in the waves, laughing and screaming as Joe chases them. They are due to return to London tomorrow morning but Will and Blake are staying behind for a few more weeks. There’s no rush to return to the hustle and bustle of London when the summer is long and the war is long gone.

“It’s beautiful,” Blake says as they stand on the edge of the cliff and stare out at the vast, infinite sea. 

Will glances at Blake. He looks soft and happy in Will’s woolly jumper. The sleeves are a little longer on him so he had to roll them up to fit properly and if that isn’t the most endearing thing in the world Will doesn’t know what is. Blake’s curly, chocolate brown hair flutters in the wind, his cheeks are still flushed from the morning they spent quietly making love in bed, drowning in the sunrise light and _oh_ , his eyes are as blue as the summer sky.

Will keeps his gaze on Blake as he swallows, his heart skipping a beat, and says, “yes, you are.”

Blake’s cheeks redden. He glances at Will. “I — I meant the sea.”

Will’s lips quirk up, “that too.”

“Scho,” Blake says, stepping closer to him and wrapping his arms around Will’s neck. He’s smiling now, bright and warm and once again Will marvels that Blake is in his life at all, “you have turned into a sap.”

Will only smiles and presses their foreheads together. He settles his hands on Blake’s hips and pulls him flush against him. The wind passes, carrying a note of honeysuckle and tulip, from the colourful bushes that decorate the edge of their cottage. Their eyes flutter shut as they breathe each other and the sweet summer scent in. 

_Yes,_ he thinks as he places two fingers under Blake's chin and tilts his face up, their lips meeting in a slow, sweet kiss, _I'm finally home._

_Two: Napping_

For most of his childhood Mother would berate him for waking up too late or napping too much and her constant nagging would aggravate Will to no end. Now, crouching in the muddy trenches as Bosche threaten to end them all he misses her lectures on the dangers of sleeping too much. He would give up victory ifit meant he could be back home with her, having her nudge him awake and tell him to get dressed for church. Of course that won’t happen and even if it did, she died long before the war began and he wouldn’t want her to see him like this. She would look in his eyes and see all the wretched things he has done in the name of King and Country. She would see he was not the boy she raised. The war has morphed him into something else entirely. 

Some people’s favourite hobbies are golf or birdwatching, Will's favourite hobby is napping. Sleep is a luxury good in the trenches, good sleep is a rare commodity. It is only allowed in daylight and up to an hour in the night because the last thing you want to be is asleep when the Bosche start hailing the trenches with their bloody shells. Any chance of rest in the dugouts is impossible so Will likes to take naps against the oak tree at the edge of camp. It’s peaceful here, no one bothers him. After the horrors of the Somme, sleep evades him and nightmares chase him whenever he closes his eyes. 

It is weeks, maybe months since he slept properly, reality begins to bend and become unreal but then Blake starts joining him by the tree, talking to him about everything under the sun and his bright, fruity voice lulls him to sleep. He wakes up sometime later when the sun has dipped far below the horizon and drowned the world in deep purples and pinks, with his head on Blake’s shoulder. 

The first time it happens Will is so startled he jumps away and almost cracks his head on the tree trunk. He winces as he rubs the back of his head, checking for blood as he hit it pretty hard.  Blake doesn’t stop laughing for a good a minute (he has a delightful laugh) and eventually stops to smile and tell Will, “it’s okay, I didn’t mind. You looked like you needed the rest.”

It happens again. Blake finds Will by the tree and gushes about how much he misses his mother’s cherry pies because they are the best in the world and it sends Will to sleep, his head lolling onto Blake’s shoulder. Sleep and his beloved naps returns to him in the coming months and he doesn’t feel like he’s stumbling through a hazy dream. The world becomes solid once more and reality, despite its monstrous shape, is something he can face. Of course the nightmares still plague him _(God,_ the putrid stench of ripped apart corpses,the gunfire, the bloodcurdling screams) but it is not as frightening with Blake by his side.

_Three: Blake’s mouth_

On their initial meeting, the first thing Will notices about Blake is his mouth. No — it’s his eyes, bright blue and innocent, when Will looks up to find this green boy standing beside him. Perhaps, it’s because they are the same shade as the summer sky in Cornwall and it reminds him of a time when all he knew was peace. All he knows now is war. 

He slinked off to the huge oak tree at the edge of camp to drown his sorrows in a bottle of wine he swapped for a medal when Blake appears out of nowhere, with his bright blue eyes and warm, soft hands he held out as greeting. It is so painfully clear he’s new and so unbearably young and Will wants to scream, _run, run, run, there is only death here!_ But alas, he’s a little drunk and a little mesmerised by the way the wine stains Blake’s mouth. It’s the second thing Will notices about him. He has a lovely mouth, full and pink like rose petals and faraway, somewhere in his alcohol-addled mind he wonders if Blake’s mouth is as soft as it looks. 

He wonders for two months in fleeting moments until one day, on a cold, mid-December night Blake kisses him. The Sergeant peaked his head into their dugout that morning and blessed them with watch duty for the night. Objection was not an option. There are no options in this bloody war. Every action is the direct cause of a command and it will get them all killed. Will and Blake sit side by side, their shoulders brushing, sitting just below the periscope on wooden crates with their backs against the dry yet muddy wall. Every now and then they take turns looking through the periscope for any Bosche movement but in the last three hours they have spotted nothing. 

He hates night watch for two reasons; he cannot see Blake or his pretty mouth in the darkness and they must keep their voices low as this is the quiet sector of the trench. The latter means Blake cannot finish telling him the story behind Wilko’s missing ear which is annoying because half the camp knows it by now and he doesn’t. He supposes it will have to wait till morning or when they are back in the active sector of the trench but that also means regular shellings. 

Will sighs and looks up at the black sky and the pinpricked stars. Are they watching? If they are, they must be disgusted by mankind or perhaps they are no longer surprised. Mankind and warfare go hand in hand, don’t they?

Next to him, he feels Blake shiver.

“Do you want my coat?” Will asks, glancing at him with a slight frown. 

He is used to the frigid temperaturesby now. He can get by just fine in his jacket. Blake just looks at him, his big blue eyes have turned silver in the moonlight and Will is struck by the emotion swimming in them. He cannot quite name it but it makes his chest tighten in a way that makes it hard to breathe. 

“Blake?” He says, confused by the staring. “Blake, are you—”

Blake crashes their mouths together, his fingers crumpling in the lapels of Will’s coat as he pulls him closer. Will freezes, his eyes widening as a part of him screams that this is _wrong, wrong, wrong_ but Blake’s mouth is warm and softer than it looks —

Blake wrenches away but his fingers are still clutching the lapels of Will’s coat. His eyes have widened too as he stares at Will like he cannot believe his own actions. 

“Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, fuck — I’m so, _so_ sorry, Scho,” he sputters in a hushed whisper, “I — I just…I c—couldn’t take it anymore and—”

Will slides a hand behind Blake’s neck and tugs him close, crashing their lips back together. Blake seems to melt almost immediately, letting out the softest moan when Will tilts his head to the side and nudges his mouth open. The sound shoots straight to Will’s groin and heat pools in the pit of his stomach. He tangles his other hand in Blake’s curly locks, not realising he had been itching to do that until now. Blake returns the kiss in earnest. The Bosche are less than a mile away, the war rages through the continent and the cold frost of the night becomes a long forgotten thing. All that matters now is the soft heat of Blake’s mouth and how silky his locks feel in Will’s fingers and the way Will’s heart drum so loudly in his chest he’s convinced the whole camp must hear it. 

It makes sense now. The nerves, the ever present uncertainty he feels when he is around Blake, like he is teetering on the edge of a great chasm. It make sense and he no longer fears going over the edge because he isn’t falling after all, he is soaring, free and light as a feather.


End file.
